The practical difference between pip and conda

Question

I saw other questions regarding the difference between pip and conda, but it is not clear yet, keep in mind that before marking as duplicates.

If I run pip install seaborn and conda install seaborn I get the same result?

I can run pip install seaborn twice without any problems, but if I run pip install and then conda install , do I get the same package duplicated in two different places?

Conda and pip cannot be used interchangeably, but what are some examples of this?

Answer 1

• Both pip and conda install the package (pretty much) with the same end result. There may be slight differences, for example. zipped egg or not, it depends a little on how the conda package was created. The conda package is always a compiled binary distribution, but not a source distributor.
• I don’t think conda will install it in different places, it may very well overwrite your pip package. But this is pretty risky because conda keeps track of what is installed and defines all the dependencies between all conda packages in the environment. You really want to limit yourself to conda packages and install package packages if you really need to. It is very easy to create conda packages, albeit from pip packages.
• Not sure about “interchangeability,” you can use them side by side. But pip and conda do not know about each other, so you may have problems updating packages to new versions.

In short: if you use conda packages, it is best to stick with this. You get the best of the conda ecosystem with its package version and environmental management.